CHAPTER 4
Joe’s been patrolling the hilly streets of Charlestown, riding alone in his cruiser for a few hours now. It’s a typical day tour, which of course is an oxymoron, and Joe knows it. There’s no such thing as a typical tour. It’s one of the things he loves and hates about his job.
He loves it because it means he’s never bored. Not that every minute of every shift is enthralling. Most shifts crawl through hours of mind-numbing tedium, beginning with roll call and the ridiculous daily song and dance of locating the damn four-digit number on his assigned car among a sea of identical parked cruisers, then driving the same familiar streets, nothing at all happening. And then, invariably, something does.
A call will come in. Someone is breaking into a home on Green Street, some husband is beating the crap out of his beloved wife, there’s a pileup involving a tanker trailer hauling jet fuel on the northbound expressway, another bank robbery, several purses were stolen from an office in the Schrafft Center, there’s a bar fight outside the Warren Tavern, there’s a gang fight outside the high school, there’s a sunken car in the harbor with a body in it, someone jumped off the Tobin Bridge. It can be anything, and it’s never the same. Every burglary, every assault, every domestic is different, and different means never boring. It means that with every call, there’s the chance Joe will be summoned to use any and all of his training and skills.
Responding to a call also gives him the rare chance to experience what he loves most about his job—when he really helps someone out, when swift and decisive action results in a win for the good guys, when they take the bad guys off the street and keep this corner of the planet just a little bit safer. If that sounds like a corny after-school special, so be it. It’s why Joe keeps showing up for roll call, and he’d bet box seats behind home plate at Fenway that every officer worth his salt feels the same way.
But it’s a double-edged sword, because each call also brings the greater possibility of steering Joe directly into the mouth of what he hates most about his job. Every day, police officers see the hairy, smelly underbelly of humanity, the most depraved and evil shit human beings are capable of, shit civilians thankfully can’t imagine. A call comes in. A man in Roxbury strangled his wife, stuffed her in a trash bag, and then threw her off the roof of his apartment building. A mother in Dorchester drowned her three-year-old twin boys in the bathtub. Two bombs on Marathon Monday.
He has his training and the stress unit to help him deal with whatever it is, and as have all his fellow officers, Joe’s made a fine art out of telling crude jokes and acting callous, a standard and fairly transparent arsenal of self-defense mechanisms aimed at keeping the vile carnage he’s witnessed from penetrating him. But it does. And it changes him. It changes all of them.
The trick is not to let it affect Rosie and the kids. He remembers the body of a teenage girl, shot twice in the head, left rotting in a Dumpster in Chinatown. Even lifeless and discolored and covered in flies, the girl looked so much like Meghan, Joe couldn’t take it. He had to use every ounce of willpower he possessed to suppress the urge to puke right there in front of everyone. He did what he had to do, holding it together, stuffing the revulsion down, moving through his duties on autopilot. Hours later, alone in his cruiser, he noticed his hands gripped around the steering wheel, shaking so violently that the entire car shimmied.
When Joe got home that night, Rosie asked, “How was your day, sweetie?” Probably the most innocent and banal question in most marriages, it’s a can of fuckin’ vipers for Joe, and he ain’t opening it. That night, like so many others, he gave Rosie a kiss and a vague “Good” and went to bed.
He had nightmares about that young girl in the Dumpster for months but never mentioned a word of any of it to Rosie. She often complains about his silence and wishes he’d share more with her. He knows that good communication is important for a healthy relationship, and officers suffer a higher-than-normal rate of divorce, but he’d never burden her with the horrors he’s seen. Once you can imagine these things, you can’t unimagine them.
So no shift is typical and no call routine, but so far today, nothing’s happened. He slows down in front of his house on Cook Street. No sign of anyone. Even though it’s almost noon, Patrick is probably still sleeping. Meghan was up and out earlier than Joe. He checks the time. Katie is teaching a yoga class at Town Yoga in a few minutes, the noon Hour of Power. He’ll drive by her next. JJ may or may not be on duty now, Joe can’t remember. Colleen is at work. She’s a physical therapist at Spaulding. And Rosie is working today. She’s a part-time receptionist for a dermatologist practice in the Schrafft building. He smiles, imagining his family doing what they should be doing. All is well.
He hasn’t seen the other cruisers here since earlier in the morning. Only four officers cover Charlestown—one two-man car, the rapid, and two one-man service cars. Joe’s grateful he’s alone in a service car and wasn’t assigned to a rapid today. He’s not in the mood for conversation, and a lot of the guys, especially the young rookies, are real Chatty Cathys and never shut the fuck up. Maybe he’s just turning into a crotchety old man of forty-three, but Joe finds more and more that he prefers the solitude and quiet of a service or tango car to the chitchat of a rapid.
Joe drives by the Bunker Hill Monument and slows to study the makeshift memorial where a nineteen-year-old boy was shot to death last week—a wooden cross, red, white, and blue balloons, a baseball glove, a teddy bear, his school picture. Joe sighs. Such a waste.
Charlestown is a relatively safe neighborhood. They don’t typically see a lot of violent crime, and almost never any homicides. But there’s that word again. Typical. There’s no such thing.
Charlestown’s crime cocktail consists mostly of drugs, thefts, domestics, and bar fights. In recent years, Joe’s seen a lot of muggings in Charlestown. That kind of shit didn’t happen here when he was growing up. Not that people then were above stealing. Almost every kid Joe knew was related to someone who’d committed a real crime, and burglary was probably the most popular. But there was a code of ethics with respect to stealing, if that’s possible. Robbing a bank or an office building was fine because it was considered a “victimless” crime. Robbing a person or someone’s house was never okay.
Joe remembers Billy Ryan, the scariest thug he knew, berating Mark Sullivan for lifting fifty bucks from an apartment on Belmont Street. That’s Kevin Gallagher’s house. You robbed Kevin’s mother? You piece of shit, what’s wrong with you? If memory serves Joe right, Billy actually shamed Mark into breaking back into Kevin’s house to return the money. Billy robbed a bank the next day.
Joe drives by Dougherty Park. The courts are empty, but the pool is packed. It’s ninety-seven degrees today. Hazy, hot, and humid. The hospital ERs will be clogged with heatstrokes and heart attacks. Even with the AC on full blast, Joe’s sweating. His T-shirt and underwear are soaked through, the wet cotton clinging to his skin. The relentless rays of the sun assaulting him through the windows and windshield coupled with his Kevlar vest and navy blue police uniform make Joe feel as if he’s a hothouse tomato dying on the vine. It could be worse. He could be on his feet, outside on the black pavement, directing traffic.
He winds his way down to Main Street and pauses in front of Town Yoga. There are no windows to peek through, so he can’t actually see Katie. He has no idea what goes on in there, but if he had to guess, it has something to do with women dressed in tight black pants contorting themselves into pretzels. Katie’s been hounding him for well over a year now to take one of her classes, but he always gives her some excuse wrapped in a joke. I would come, hun, but I pulled my third chakra yesterday, and the doctor said “No yoga for a month.” I’m wicked bummed.
He unwraps his tuna sub and scarfs it down, barely tasting it. He’s got the last bite stuffed in his mouth when a call comes in. A robbery in progress at 344 Bunker Hill Street. Unit 31. Joe wipes the mayonnaise from his lips with the back of his hand, hits the buttons by his hip for lights and sirens, and takes off.
He knows the address. He was just over there. It’s the old school building, now a swanky condo property filled with Toonies, across the street from the park and pool. Unit 31. Third floor.
Does it face the street or the back of the building? If it’s a back unit, does it have a balcony? A fire escape? Will the suspect exit there or through the interior of the building? Stairs or elevator? If the suspect’s a Townie, he could easily be brazen or stupid enough to walk right out the front door. The back of the building has a parking lot. Perfect spot for a getaway car. Depending on what’s being stolen, the suspect could be in a car or on foot. The building has a basement garage. A great place to hide. Is there more than one suspect? Is this a random, opportunistic hit or a targeted breakin? Is anyone home? Probably, but hopefully not. It’s the middle of the day, and this building is primarily populated by young professionals. It’s summer, so maybe the resident is away on vacation. But the caller, a neighbor, is home, so it’s possible the resident is also. An elderly parent. A retiree. A mother and baby. Someone who called in sick. Will the suspect be armed?
Joe kills the siren and then pulls over a couple of houses before the building. He’s the only car on the scene. Fuck. He doesn’t know what he’s about to face in there. Ideally, officers go into this kind of situation with the odds in their favor, a show of force so they don’t have to actually use any. But Joe can’t just wait in his car until the other officers get there. He has to get out and deal with what’s happening, whatever it is. His adrenaline spikes.
Joe pulls out his gun and holds it pointed down by his side as he enters the building and ascends the stairs to the third floor. He turns right: 35, 37. Wrong way. He pivots and hastens left. He stands in front of the door to unit 31, and Joe’s heightened senses go to work. The unit faces the back of the building. The doorframe next to the deadbolt is splintered, forcibly broken. The call is real. Joe’s heart rate escalates. He stays quiet and listens. His own heavy breathing. Air blowing from the air-conditioning vents. Talking. Male voices. A conversation.
He backs up and, in the most muted yet clear voice he can manage, radios this information in.
“We have at least two in there. Unit faces the rear. We need someone to cover the back.”
A few seconds later, Officer Tommy Vitale, Joe’s oldest, closest friend on the force, is standing beside him. The other officer from Tommy’s rapid unit must be outside, covering the rear of the building. Joe and Tommy connect eye-to-eye, and then Tommy nods. Joe turns the doorknob, and they enter the unit.
They immediately slice the room. Joe rushes diagonally left, and Tommy moves right, both heading for the walls on opposite sides of the room. Joe stands with his back to the dining room wall, and Tommy positions himself against the wall in the kitchen. They see no one so far.
They’re in one of those modern, open-floor-plan condos, and they can see into the living room. It’s a mess. Drawers dumped and emptied, papers and junk all over the floor. Beyond the living room is an open glass sliding door leading to an outdoor balcony. And bingo, there are the two suspects. Teenage boys.
Both Joe and Tommy advance, guns pointed at the boys’ chests.
“Boston PD! Drop the bags and show me your hands!” yells Joe.
The boys are in T-shirts, long, baggy shorts, sneakers, baseball caps, and dark sunglasses. Both are carrying black backpacks. Joe is trying to figure out whether the boy on the left is armed while still aiming his gun at the center of the boy’s chest when this moron decides to make a break for it and vaults the railing.
A third-floor unit is thirty feet up. Joe’s not sure what this genius was thinking would happen when he landed, but he’s probably broken both legs and possibly his back. He’s lying on the pavement, and his screaming turns to a pitiful squeal when Officer Sean Wallace flips and cuffs him.
“So is it your turn?” asks Tommy, cocking his head toward the railing.
The kid drops the bag and holds his bare hands in the air.
“At least this one has a brain in his head,” says Tommy as he cuffs him. “Size of a pea, but he’s got one.”
Joe searches the rest of the condo to be sure there aren’t any other pals in on the heist. The two bedrooms, the two bathrooms, and the home office are all empty. The bedrooms don’t look too bad, but the home office is gutted.
Joe returns to the balcony.
“The rest is clear.”
Tommy is patting down the prisoner; he’s searching for a weapon but doesn’t find one. They see this a lot, especially in the summer, when school is out and the kids have too much time on their hands. These teens break into someone’s house, steal whatever they can get their hands on, and pawn it for cash. The cash is always for drugs. If Joe doesn’t catch them stealing, he catches them buying. If he doesn’t catch them buying, he catches them using or doing something stupid while using. And after they’re out on bail or parole, he catches them again. Round and round they go.
Joe eyes the young man cuffed and slouched before him. He’s hanging his head, so Joe can’t get a good look at his face under the rim of his baseball cap, but Joe recognizes the heavy ink on both arms—the Irish and American flags, a navy ship, a heart, and a four-leaf clover. It’s Scotty O’Donnell, the younger brother of Robby O’Donnell, who grew up with Patrick. Robby was a star basketball player in high school and stayed out of trouble. Scotty’s older sisters were all honor-roll students. His mother goes to church with Rosie, and his father works at the post office. He comes from a good family.
“Scotty, what the hellaya doin’?” says Joe.
Scotty looks down at his sneakers and shrugs.
“Look at me when I’m talkin’ to you.”